Finding Home
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: They only have each other to turn to. But, maybe that's all they need.
1. Death

**Author's Note:** There was a request made for the Fall Fandom Free-For-All with this challenge:

_the Pevensies are the bestest con-artists out there. Lucy is the best at pick pocketing and Peter is really good with a gun. Edmund can lie like no other and Susan can charm any man out of his pants and empty his wallet._

...which sounds like it would be really light and humorous. And then I got my hands on it. And, as many of you know, I seem to be incapable of doing light and humorous. Having tissues on hand for some of these chapters wouldn't be a bad idea.

This is written as a series of drabbles anywhere from 100 to 1000 words.

**Finding Home**

**030. Death**

As he watched the coffins being lowered into the ground, Peter felt tears welling up in his eyes. But, he swallowed hard and deliberately widened his eyes against the bright sunlight, refusing to let the tears fall. His parents were gone, and he was the man of the house, now, even if he was only nine, and that meant that he had to be strong. Even if he didn't feel particularly strong at the moment.

Beside him, Susan had tears silently streaming down her face as she watched dirt being shoveled into the holes in the ground. She had her arms wrapped protectively around Lucy, and the toddler squeaked when her older sister squeezed her too hard. She'd been crying, earlier, almost breathless from sobbing, but she'd stopped when Lucy and Edmund had joined them. She, like Peter, knew that she had to be strong for her family. It was what their parents would have wanted of her.

On Peter's other side was Edmund, who was as still and silent as when they'd first heard about the accident. Peter had heard his aunt and uncle whispering about it before the funeral, about how unnatural it was for a child to be so quiet, how there must be something wrong with Edmund. There had been talk of trips to a special doctor, like Edmund was broken, somehow, and needed to be fixed. Peter had been mad when he'd heard that. There was nothing wrong with his brother; he would cry when he was ready, Peter was sure of it.

Lucy, still wrapped in Susan's arms, had a confused look on her small face. She'd been calling for their mum every night since the accident, and Peter wondered if she understood that their parents weren't coming back. He wondered if she'd even remember their parents, later, or if she would forget their faces with time.

Privately, that was what scared him the most. That he could wake up one day and not remember what his mum looked like, or the sound of his dad's voice. And he had to remember, he just had to. Otherwise, who was going to remind Susan, Edmund, and Lucy if they started to forget?

To his horror, he could feel the tears that he'd tried so desperately to keep at bay start flowing down his cheeks. He took a deep, shuddering breath to try and stop the tears, but that only made the problem worse. A sob caught in his throat, choking him, and then he lost it. He started crying, great, bawling sobs in the middle of the cemetery. Crying like a baby for everyone to see, and that was embarrassing because he was supposed to be the strong one. He wasn't supposed to be falling apart.

But, he couldn't stop crying, just felt the sobs get worse, his entire body shaking from the force of it. Then, he felt something else – a small pair of arms snaking around his waist and holding onto him, hard.

"I wanna cry, too," Edmund whispered, burying his face against Peter's chest, and somehow, that made it all right.

He hugged his brother back, shifting his arms to include Susan and Lucy in their embrace, as well. And they stood like that for the rest of the funeral, blocking out everything but each other.


	2. Home

**090. Home**

Susan used to think that their house in Finchley was too small. Too little space for too many people, and she never had the privacy she wanted. Not only did she have to share a room with Lucy, but Peter and Edmund were always barging in whenever they wanted. She used to climb out onto the roof just to get alone, scaling the trellis that ran the height of the house. She would sit up on the roof and dream of a time when she could have all the space she wanted, without her siblings getting in the way.

Now, she would give anything to have that house back. To have Lucy climbing into bed with her in the middle of the night, or to have Peter and Edmund demanding that she play the helpless princess to their white knights. She wanted her home back, so badly that it hurt.

Instead, they were living in the Scrubb's house, which was too big. Now, she had her own space, but it meant sleeping alone at night in a strange room, where every sound and shadow was a monster hiding under the bed. She had all the privacy she wanted, but it meant that Edmund still wasn't talking to anyone, that Peter was hiding out in his room, again, that Lucy was too scared to leave either of her brothers' sides.

She wanted that to change, too. She wanted her happy, little sister back. She wanted the obnoxious brothers who were always bothering her. She wanted her family to be the way it used to be, not this broken thing rattling around in a too-big house.

It didn't even feel like their house. They'd been living there for a week, and Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold still hadn't put any pictures up of their family. Thinking about it, Susan couldn't remember her aunt and uncle even taking any of her family's pictures out of their old house. Everything in this house was so stiff and formal, it was as if no one even really lived there. They didn't even have pictures of their own family, anywhere.

She hated this place that didn't feel like home.

So, she decided, she would make it feel like home.

She, Peter, and Edmund had gone exploring one afternoon, while Lucy was sleeping, and they'd found the attic filled with dusty, old boxes. There had to be something in there that she could use to make this place feel more like home.

Her mind made up, Susan changed into a set of grubby play clothes, not wanting to get her dress dirty. Then, she headed up to the attic. The thick cloud of dust that covered everything was disturbed when she opened the door, and the cloud that rose up made her sneeze, violently. It was so bad that her eyes started watering. But, she wasn't about to let that deter her.

Opening the boxes closest to her, Susan found neatly folded stacks of clothing, and she nearly cried when she lifted the first garment out and saw that it was her mother's favorite dress. She opened the rest of the boxes in rapid succession, finding more and more clothing, most of it belonging to her parents. One held her father's medals that he'd earned in service to the military, and Susan pulled them out and set them aside, knowing that Peter would want to keep them.

She finally found what she was looking for in the boxes stacked up underneath the window. Pictures carefully wrapped in scraps of old, soft cloths. There were pictures of her grandparents, pictures of her mum and Aunt Alberta as children, and pictures of Eustace as a baby. And buried at the bottom of one of the last boxes was a painting of a dragon-headed ship with majestic sails.

Uncovering the painting, Susan rubbed the dust off with a corner of the cloth that had covered it. For just a second, she thought she could see the ship moving, but it had to be just a trick of the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Paintings, no matter how beautiful, didn't move.

But she added the painting to the pile of pictures she had gathered off to the side. It would look nice in one of their rooms, maybe Lucy's. Her younger sister had always been creating wild and wonderful stories before the accident; maybe this would help her start, again.

When she had finished, Susan took the pictures downstairs and started hanging them in their rooms. The painting of the ship went on Lucy's wall, right where she would be able to see it when she woke up from her nap. Then, instead of going back to her room, Susan settled on the foot of Lucy's bed, watching her sister sleep and thinking of a story to tell her when she woke up. She thought the story of Princess Lucy and the pirates might be a good one.


	3. School

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading.

**088. School**

"Edmund? Don't you want to go join the other children?"

Edmund's eyes flicked upwards at the sound of his new teacher's voice, and she smiled when she saw his face.

"Your classmates have gone out to play," she prompted, gently, from where she was crouched in front of his desk. "Aren't you going to join them?"

Silently, he shook his head, casting his eyes back down to the paper on the desk in front of him. Picking up his pencil, he started to scribble on the paper, again. For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was that of the pencil scratching on the paper, and then the scraping of a chair across the floor got his attention.

To his surprise, his teacher had pulled a chair up to his desk and was sitting down beside him. Taking a pencil from a nearby desk, she gestured to his paper.

"May I?" she asked.

Thinking about it for a moment, Edmund pushed the paper across the desk until a clean portion sat in front of his teacher. He was still expecting her to try and get him to talk, just like every other adult he'd met, lately, which is why it was even more surprising when she just started doodling on her half of the paper.

For a few minutes, Edmund ignored her and just stuck to his own drawings, frowning and erasing furiously when it didn't turn out like he wanted it to. But, out of the corner of his eye, he could see his teacher concentrating on her work, her pencil moving steadily across the paper.

He tried to pretend that he wasn't interested, but it was hard to keep from peeking at her drawing, and after a few minutes, he gave up on his work, entirely. He stared, transfixed, as her drawing came to life underneath her hand, a sketch of a puppy that looked like it could come to life and leap off the paper.

Seeing his fascination, his teacher stopped her movements and smiled at him.

"Would you like to learn?" she asked, and after a moment, he nodded, hesitantly. "You've got some skill, there," she continued, tapping his drawings with her pencil. "These are very good."

Edmund blushed at the unexpected praise, but listened carefully when his teacher started to explain.

"You start with small lines," she told him, sketching as she spoke. "And while you're drawing, try to see what you want to draw in your mind. Hold the image in your mind, and then let it flow onto the paper."

He watched in amazement as another small drawing emerged on the paper, this time a sketch of his own face.

"Now, you try," she encouraged, and he picked his pencil up, again. "Small lines," she coached, watching him, and he nodded, frowning in concentration.

Slowly, a picture started to come to life under his pencil, but he huffed out a frustrated sigh when it didn't come out the way he wanted it to.

"That's all right," his teacher said, when he scowled down at his drawing. "You're not going to be perfect on the first try. Like everything, it takes practice."

"I was trying to draw my mum," he whispered, quietly. "I don't want to forget what she looked like."

"You won't," she assured him, laying a gentle hand on the back of his shoulders. "You'll remember her every time your sisters laugh, or when you see a rainbow – anything can remind you of your mum."

"Susan was reading to Lucy the other night like Mum used to," he whispered.

"That's what I'm talking about," his teacher said, encouragingly. "And she'll always be in your heart. You'll always remember how much you love her."

Edmund nodded, again, turning his attention back to his drawings, again. After a moment, he heard more scratching, and looked over to see his teacher focusing on her drawings, again. Seeing him watch her, she smiled at him.

"It's not too late," she said, when she caught his gaze wandering to the window where he could see the rest of his class playing in the sunshine. "You could still join them."

Edmund just shook his head and kept drawing. "I like it, here," he replied.


	4. Strangers

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the long wait; my Narnia muse has been quiet, recently.

**025. Strangers**

Susan had been in the middle of a spelling test when she was called out of class. As she gathered up her schoolbooks and her bag, she wondered why she was being summoned to the headmaster's office. Especially during the middle of a test, which was a little annoying, because she knew she had been doing well, and now she wasn't going to be able to finish.

As she walked through the halls, she tried to figure out why she'd been pulled away from class. She hadn't done anything to get in trouble – at least she hadn't thought so. And she didn't think the headmaster was calling her in front of him to praise her for anything. Which probably meant that it was for something bad, but she firmly pushed that thought away, not even wanting to think about it.

She was relieved to arrive at the headmaster's office and find Peter sitting in a chair in the hallway, completely fine, but her confusion only grew from there. Her older brother didn't look as though he knew why they were there any more than she did, and the door to the headmaster's office was firmly shut, denying them access.

Peter jerked his head toward the door as she sat down in the chair next to his, his shaggy blonde hair falling into his eyes with the movement.

"Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta went in there about ten minutes ago," he said, keeping his voice low so that the headmaster's assistant wouldn't hear him.

"Edmund and Lucy?" Susan asked, fearfully, her heart leaping into her throat, but Peter shook his head.

"I think they're okay," was all he said before the door opened, their aunt and uncle coming out into the hallway.

"Come in here," Uncle Harold said, his voice clipped.

He was looking down the hallway, not even meeting their eyes, and Susan started to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She followed Peter into the Headmaster's office, taking the seats by the door that her uncle indicated with a quick jerk of his head.

"Are we in trouble?" Susan asked, quietly, confused when a sympathetic look flashed across the Headmaster's face.

"Nothing like that," he said, and his usually gruff voice was strangely gentle. "Susan and Peter, I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Anna Wildon."

He gestured to another woman sitting in a nearby chair, her hands folded over a satchel resting in her lap.

"We felt that it would be easier to do this here, rather than at the house," Aunt Alberta said, drawing their attention to her.

"Do what?" Peter asked, looking as confused as Susan felt.

"Harold and I have been talking," Aunt Alberta continued, "and we've reached a decision."

"It's nothing against you four," Uncle Harold said, picking up the thread as his wife trailed off. "We thought that we could take you in, make you children a part of our family, but it's just not working."

"What do you mean?" Susan asked, but Peter got what they were hinting at.

"We're not going to be staying with you, any longer, are we?" he asked, bluntly.

"We tried to make this work," Alberta told them. "But, you children, you're just so difficult-"

Harold laid a hand on her arm, quieting her as her voice started to rise.

"We understand that this time has been difficult for you, ever since your parents died," he went on. "And, I promised my sister that I would do my best by you four. But, it's been nearly a month, and we've got our Eustace to think about, and we think that this is just the best thing for everyone."

"But, you're our only family!" Susan blurted out, desperately. "Where are we supposed to go?"

"With me," Anna Wildon spoke up. "I work for the Orphan School, and all four of you are more than welcome there."

It might have been Susan's imagination, but she thought she saw Mrs. Wildon giving her aunt and uncle a disapproving look as she spoke. But, when she turned back to Susan and Peter, her eyes were gentle, again.

"Your brother and sister are waiting out in my car," she continued. "If you'd like to come with me?"

Standing, she went over to the door, waiting expectantly. Susan looked at her aunt and uncle, but the adults were staring resolutely at the Headmaster's desk, their faces completely blank. She tried to say goodbye, but she couldn't force the words out, and Peter didn't look like he was having much more luck.

Finally, she and Peter just stood and followed Mrs. Wildon out of the office. Edmund and Lucy were waiting for them out in the woman's car, and they huddled together in the backseat, watching the last part of their old life grow smaller in the distance.


	5. Children

**Author's ****Note:** A short one, this time. Thanks so much to my fantastic readers and reviewers. You guys are awesome, and I love hearing what you think.

**028. Children**

Other children, Edmund learned, could be cruel.

The bigger boys would pick fights with Peter (and some of them were much bigger, especially to his six-year-old eyes), leaving his brother bruised and bloody. Edmund couldn't understand why Peter stood to fight, why he didn't just back down or run away, and Peter never told him. All he would say was that he had to, and Edmund would help him clean up late at night, when he didn't want to make Susan or Lucy worry. And every time, he made Peter promise that it would be the last time, even though he knew it wouldn't.

Susan had to endure the taunts of the older girls; girls who teased her for her long, brown hair, calling her plain and ugly. She bore the taunts with a kind of stoic grace, but in the privacy of the room that she shared with Lucy, she let herself cry. She tried to hide it from her siblings, but Edmund knew. He hated the sad look in his sister's eyes, hated the other girls for putting it there. And most of all, he hated not being able to do anything about it.

Lucy, thankfully, was spared the direct cruelty of the other kids at the Orphan School. Even the biggest bullies drew the line at teasing a four-year-old. But, she saw everything that went on with her little family, and she knew what Peter and Susan were going through, as much as they tried to hide it. And Edmund could see how much it hurt her to see her brother and sister being hurt. So, he did the only thing he could. When Lucy came to him in the middle of the night, he held her, and rocked her, and whispered that everything was going to be okay. And sometimes he even believed it, himself.

Other children could be cruel, and Edmund made a vow that he would never be one of them.


End file.
